


Sitting Ducks

by SpellCleaver



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Crack, Ducks, Gen, Gift Fic, Humour, Inspired by Art, Luke Skywalker: Desert Boy, Wildlife is interesting, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25443391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpellCleaver/pseuds/SpellCleaver
Summary: There is a Rebel outpost on Naboo.Luke Skywalker has never seen wildlife the likes of which Naboo has to offer before.Somehow, that becomes an Imperial spy's problem.
Relationships: Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker & Original Character(s), Wedge Antilles & Luke Skywalker
Comments: 58
Kudos: 341





	Sitting Ducks

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyVader23](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyVader23/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Lady!!
> 
> I... okay, this is crack. Was very strange to write this, considering what I usually write XD But it was fun, and I hope you like it!!
> 
> Massive shoutout to [SilverDaye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDaye) for the art this fic was based on (the link is in the end notes) and to [Azalea_Scroggs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azalea_Scroggs) for brainstorming puns with me!!

There was a Rebel outpost on Naboo.

The Empire had known about it for some time—it was a refuelling outpost for pilots operating in the Chommel sector and the wider Mid Rim, a pretty dead place all in all. There was a staff of less than a hundred, essentially sitting ducks in how poorly defended they were, and living in total secrecy in the Lake Country, far away from Theed. But its quietness and small size meant it was considered one of the most trustworthy, safest bases for Rebel pilots to land at; all the Rebel operatives and mechanics who worked there knew each other intimately, so surely no one there would sell them out?

Well, one of them there had been a spy there from the beginning, of course. Ground crew worker Mar Shayal, in truth Imperial agent Lieutenant Rosa Felan, had been working on Rebel ships since the outpost had been founded here three years ago, and she was the major reason the Empire continued to allow this place to still operate. They had the numbers. They had the evidence it was Rebel-operated. They had the power to crush it underfoot.

But the Imperial brass wanted to catch the Queen of Naboo in the act of supporting the base and helping the Rebels. They wanted to handle the situation with the Emperor's homeworld delicately. And most of all: the information Rosa passed on had proven extremely useful in combating Rebel movements in this sector. Wanted pilots who dropped by, used hyperspace routes, coordinates and comms and calculations... she passed on far more useful information on a day to day basis than the Empire could hope to gain from seizing this measly outpost and tearing apart their communications' rigs.

However, there was one thing that could risk destroying the tentative peace and stability Rosa had found in her position of betrayal, subterfuge and sabotage, and in hindsight, exactly what it was... was not unexpected.

The presence of Commander Luke Skywalker—as well as the broader Rogue Squadron itself—did tend to wreak havoc on any orderly system, after all.

* * *

Vader was brooding—that was, he was meditating. He was often meditating these days. Ever since he'd found out about _his son_ , despite knowing that the odds were slight, despite knowing that Luke was untrained, left to dwell in raw power and potential rather than hone it, he had found himself incessantly reaching into the Force, _scouring_ the Force, for any hint of him.

He knew he was out there. He must be.

Vader had a fleet to run and an Emperor to report to. He did not have time to fester in the Force for hours on end. But he allowed himself this minor indulgence now, just as he allowed himself the indulgence of planning and planning and planning the preparations he would make for the boy when he finally had him in his grasp.

So when he was seated in his hyperbaric chamber, sucking in oxygen fiercely with every rapid pace of his thoughts, it was with an almost vicious eagerness that he received a spy's report.

The spy was one Lieutenant Felan, a name he neither knew nor cared about. She reported to people beneath him, about an outpost that was beneath him. But her report had been directed straight to him because of a few key lines of description at the top, and the sight of them—the sight of two words, a name, in particular—had him almost shattering the datapad to read the file.

THESH BASE, LAKE COUNTRY, NABOO, CHOMMEL SECTOR, MID RIM:

FROM: LT. FELAN, ROSA

TO: WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.

THERE ARE, AS ALWAYS, NUMEROUS DETAILS TO REPORT ON THE REBELS' DOINGS AT THIS BASE AND IN THIS SECTOR, BUT THE PRIMARY ONE, AND THE REASON IT IS MY RECOMMENDATION THIS INFORMATION BE FORWARDED TO LORD VADER AT ONCE, IS THIS:

ROGUE SQUADRON, UNDER THE COMMAND OF COMMANDER LUKE SKYWALKER, MOST WANTED FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE DEATH STAR TWO YEARS AGO, ARE ON THEIR WAY TO THESH BASE. THE REASON FOR THEIR EXCURSION HERE, I DO NOT KNOW—

He read the rest of it hungrily.

Luke Skywalker was heading to Naboo.

_Why?_ was a primary thought on his mind but... one he didn't want to dwell on. It was clear to him that Kenobi had poisoned Luke's mind with a twisted version of the truth about his _father_ but there was no reason for him to do likewise with his mother; Luke... might have volunteered for the mission to Naboo... so that he could...

No. He wouldn't think about that.

He wouldn't think about _why Naboo was important._

All he would think about was that it _was_ important, because he was going to travel there and finally capture his son, and there they would be reunited at last.

He pulled up another page on his datapad, typing out orders to prepare his shuttle and a contingent of TIEs and troop transports; he didn't want to put all his eggs in one basket, and he couldn't redirect the whole _Executor_ there for fear of alerting his master to the fact that something was wrong, but he could go himself, make sure the job was done _right_...

While he waited for the _yessir_ response on the shuttle, he typed out a short, harsh order back to _Lieutenant Felan_ for what she was to do while Skywalker was there.

He needed information on his son, and the sooner he got it, the better. There were important preparations to be made.

* * *

Rosa stared at the underbelly of a blown X-wing and tried not to scream.

She... had to admit, that in her years working here, she had grown to admire the Rebel X-wings more than she did the Imperial TIE fighters. They were slower, but much hardier and packed a hell of a lot more of a punch. But that wasn't to say that they could _take_ every punch as it came, and the fact that she was fairly sure—judging by the markings on the side of it—she was currently knee deep in the guts of an X-wing that had survived the Battle of Yavin, meant she was less than thrilled to be patching this one up.

"Be careful with her, Mar!" the pilot yelped. A dark-haired man with a Corellian accent—a survivor of Yavin, perhaps, but not Skywalker. She'd seen Skywalker's bird on the other side of the hangar.

Rosa didn't flinch. "Like you were when you flew into that laser blast?"

"I—!"

"She's not wrong, Wedge," drawled an Outer Rim accent. Rosa was far too professional to jerk her head up (and therefore bash it on the X-wing) but she did prick her ears up to listen. "You walked right into the TIEs' trap."

Wedge huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. "Saving your sorry backside, boss!"

She was right, then. That _was_ Luke Skywalker, the most wanted man in the galaxy. Curious, she glanced over, clutching her spanner tightly; he was... short, with a mop of light hair, baby-faced without a doubt, the duckling of Rogue Flight—why the hells did they make _this_ kid a commander—

"Besides," Wedge grumbled, "you can't make breakfast without breaking a few eggs."

And when Skywalker glanced up, there was a massive bacta patch, right across his nose.

She did a double take. He lifted his gaze up to notice hers, and smiled a little awkwardly. "Hi. Mar Shayal, right?"

"Yeah," she said half-heartedly, "what happened to your _face_?"

Wedge burst out laughing.

"Speaking of waltzing right into trouble," he crowed. "What _did_ happen to your face, boss?"

Skywalker pinched his lips with a slight smile and said, "We were out on the speeders for reconnaissance flights, earlier. Wedge and Hobbie had Veruna lake and Neeyutnee lake to check out, and took _ages_ —"

"Not everyone's an early bird like you, Luke."

"—while we had Apailana and Amidala."

"Amidala is a beautiful lake, just north of here," she said conversationally, eyeing him suddenly and remembering the _strange_ list of information she'd been ordered to require. What size shoe did he look like he wore, a nine? And how tall was he, exactly?

How, exactly, was she meant to feedback to Lord Vader about a Rebel commander's _likes and dislikes_?

Why this was so important to the running of the Empire, she had no idea, but if Lord Vader wished it...

"It is," Luke agreed. "Massive though; took a while to look over."

"The Naboo tend to name the bigger lakes after the most beloved monarchs. It's almost a popularity contest—there was one king, years ago, who had a paddling pond named after him, while Amidala got what counted as a small sea."

"With trading connections to the Gungans' cities." Skywalker sighed. "And a lot of natural wildlife."

"Ah." She smirked. "Ran afoul of one of them, did you?"

Wedge snorted. "Ran a _foul_ is one way of putting it."

"Shut up, Wedge."

"Never. I'm your _wing_ mate _—_ "

"Which one?" Rosa interrupted. "A gooberfish? A colo claw fish? Did you try to go for a swim?"

Skywalker smiled awkwardly. "I tried to go into the lake, yeah," he admitted, then flushed a faint red and turned away.

* * *

He came back the next day, when she was working on _his_ X-wing. It was equally strange to be in such close proximity to this ship, if not more so; this wasn't just a ship that had survived the Death Star. This ship had _destroyed_ it.

The Rogues were still hanging around Thesh Base—which was good, because Lord Vader hadn't arrived yet. Rosa had checked her comms unit to see that he estimated he would arrive in three days' time, so all she could do was hope that either they'd stay around for that long or that they'd leave late enough, and be clear enough with the details, that she could point Vader in the right direction to capture them anyway.

"The shields have been slightly faulty," Skywalker said.

She _did_ startle so badly she bashed her head, that time.

He winced. "Sorry, Mar."

"That's fine," she grumbled. "I forgot to duck." She tried to ignore his faint laughter the way she was ignoring the kill marking on the ship in the corner of her eye, denoting an entire Death Star. "What was that you said?" She'd been tempted to outright sabotage the ship— _that_ was an idea, sabotage the commander's bird so that Rogue Flight itself couldn't leave, and make sure they were all wrapped up neatly with a bow for Vader's arrival _that way_ —but she couldn't do it with _him watching_.

"The shields have been faulty," he said. "If you're running maintenance anyway, that's something you might wanna check out."

"They look fine," she said sceptically. It probably _was_ all in his head.

He fixed her with the largest, gooiest stare she'd ever seen on a human being before. Maybe that was the touch of extraordinary that meant he'd pulled off that shot. Maybe he was secretly part convor. "Can you just have a look at it anyway?"

Fine. "Get out of my light, Skywalker." She glanced sidelong at him as he left—then paused. "What's that on your hand?"

He glanced down at his hand. More bacta patches. Now that he looked at it, there were a few more on his cheeks as well.

He shrugged. "I fell."

"You _fell_?" She had to laugh, a little, at that. That didn't mean she was warming up to the kid— _anyone_ would laugh at that. "Into some local wildlife, again, perchance?"

He snorted. "Can you blame me? So much of the local wildlife are animals I've never seen before."

"Why, never seen a lake before?"

"I'm from Tatooine."

"Oh." That made _a lot_ more sense. He looked sunny enough to be from that place, sure, like he'd absorbed all the UV light from the suns and now spent his days glowing with it. "Which lakes were you doing recon on this time?"

"No lakes. Just fields—farmers' fields, mainly, and a few streams between them."

"So it wasn't a gooberfish." She reached up to fiddle with the screws around the shielding equipment—then paused. "Did you try to ride a shaak? Is that why you fell? Some people do that."

Skywalker laughed. "Maybe I did."

That wasn't an answer she believed, but—she was grimly aware—she had _no idea_ what else it could be.

(She later found out that there _was_ , in fact, something wrong with the shields, and considered adding _that_ to Skywalker's dossier. Likes: his ship. _Knows_ : his ship.)

* * *

Unfortunately, she got her answer for exactly which local Naboo creature had fascinated Commander Luke Skywalker so much the next day.

He did not, thankfully, turn up with more scrapes. He was charming enough that she had to admit she was glad by that. But he _did_ turn up with something else.

"Boss," Wedge—Wedge _Antilles_ , she'd recently learned he was called— "boss, you can't keep it."

"I'm not _going_ to keep him, not permanently," Skywalker shot back. "It's not like I grabbed him, did I?"

"No. You just tried to grab the others, around the lakes and streams."

"I learned my lesson with the second bite, don't worry."

"Then _why are you hugging one right now_?"

Rosa tilted her head towards the entrance to the ducking bay and nearly fainted.

"Because he followed me! I didn't do anything, I just looked at him from a distance, tried to... I don't know, connect to him through the Force, and then when I went back to the speeder he was suddenly following me and hopped in the back and I let him come!"

"And now you're hugging him."

"He hugged me first!"

Rosa was still staring.

"Look, if we stay here and end up making a base here, he can stick around, I'm smart enough not to take him off the planet, he wouldn't like space—"

Only part of her brain focused on the new knowledge that they were, apparently, trying to find if this was a good place to set up a permanent base. That was important knowledge, but...

Very, very carefully, she pulled out a small holocam she always liked to carry and snapped a picture of Skywalker, in that moment.

_That_ was, apparently, something she would be submitting to Vader for _likes and dislikes_.

* * *

Vader was meditating in his hyperbaric chamber again when the spy's latest report came through.

He opened this one just as eagerly as the one before—he had started work on Luke's quarters on his ship, but he would certainly like more detail about his son before he proceeded, and... a part of him was reluctant to admit how _desperate_ he was to know more about him. They were mere hours away from Naboo, he would see him soon, he would be able to _ask_ the boy everything he wanted to know, but—

But he was impatient.

And when he found out there was little of note to be found in the spy's report, he was _angry_.

The only notable part was:

COMMANDER LUKE SKYWALKER IS FROM A DESERT PLANET, AND THEREFORE HAS SHOWN AN IMMENSE FASCINATION WITH ALL CREATURES OF NABOO, PARTICULARLY WATER-DWELLING ONES. INJURIES HAVE BEEN OBTAINED FROM RUN-INS WITH ONE SUCH SPECIES—HOLO ENCLOSED.

Vader frowned at the extra file and selected it. The blue light of the holo shimmered into existence.

And he _stared_.

The first thing he noticed was not, strangely enough, the bizarreness of the holo itself. It was the broad smile on his face, the eyes scrunched shut in happiness, his hair mussed up.

His injuries were the next thing he noticed, and he growled to himself but dismissed them; they were minor scrapes and grazes. The Rebel flight suit was third, and was possibly the most distasteful thing about the situation; he would fix that, soon, would have _already_ fixed that if _Lieutenant Felan_ had been able to actually do her job and get Luke's measurements for him. But no matter.

It was then that he noticed the creature.

It was white and fluffy and evil. His son was hugging it to his chest tightly, grinning; it was in turn snuggling up to him with something like happiness. Perhaps the Force predisposed animals towards liking Luke.

A _duck_.

Luke... had been attacked by... and was cuddling... a _duck_.

Of course, there were no ducks on Tatooine. A young Anakin Skywalker had been equally fascinated by aquatic creatures.

But _he hadn't gone out to hug them_.

Vader's eyes flicked back to the lieutenant's report.

LIKES: HIS SHIP, AND TINKERING WITH IT; MECHANICS. ALSO CREATURES HE HAS LITTLE EXPERIENCE WITH...

He sighed.

...PARTICULARLY DUCKS.

Vader had prepared and designed Luke's quarters painstakingly. They had accounted for a fascination with colours he would no doubt have, a fascination with plants, a fascination with water. He had not accounted for a fascination with _waterfowl_.

He sighed.

It appeared that the adjustments he'd been expecting to make—for size, for preferences, for opinion—were not the only ones.

If Luke was... so fond of ducks, it appeared that he would have to make space in them for a pet, as well.

* * *

By the time Vader arrived on Naboo, Commander Skywalker was in no position to fight back against being captured. It is, after all, difficult to wield a lightsaber and engage in a proper duel when a train of fluffy yellow ducklings are following you with every step.

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate titles brainstormed were: _On the Wing_ , _Run A-Fowl_ , and some other truly terrible puns.
> 
> [This is the brilliant art of SilverDaye's that this entire fic was based on!](https://silvereddaye.tumblr.com/post/624326298833207296/for-ladyvader23s-birthday-today-in-the-anh) I imagine that to be the holo that Vader receives at the end XD
> 
> Happy birthday! I hope you enjoyed it <3


End file.
